1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recorder for use with hot melt ink or other ink. In particular, the invention relates to the ink jet recorder in which driving force for conveying a recording medium with respect to a recording head can be transmitted to a recording head maintenance mechanism and an ink supplying mechanism through clutches.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional ink jet printer for use with hot melt ink includes a recording head unit mounted on a carriage. This unit includes nozzle heads, ink melters and hoppers. The heads each have a number of nozzles. The melters each have a heater. The hoppers can receive ink pellets, which are solid at ordinary temperature. The carriage can reciprocate in the primary scanning directions, perpendicularly to which a sheet of paper or another recording medium can move. While the carriage is moved in the primary scanning directions, hot melt ink droplets are ejected from nozzles of one or more of the heads onto a recording medium.
The printer also includes an ink supply unit positioned at the top of the printer casing near its one side. This unit stores ink pellets. When one of the hoppers of the recording head unit is short of hot melt ink, the carriage is moved to a position adjacent to the ink supply unit. Then, the driver of the supply unit operates to drop one of the stored pellets into this hopper.
The printer further includes a maintenance unit positioned near the other side of the casing. With the carriage positioned near this side, this unit can force hot melt ink to be ejected from the nozzles onto an unwound part of a roll of wiping paper. This prevents the nozzles from clogging during normal print. The unwound part of the paper roll can wipe the nozzle surfaces. It is therefore necessary to take up this part of the roll little by little every time maintenance is carried out.
The printer needs to have a driver for feeding a recording medium to the print area of the printer and discharging a printed recording medium onto the discharge tray of the printer.
Therefore, the printer includes independent motive power sources each for one of the recording medium conveying system, the ink supply unit and the maintenance unit. When the carriage is positioned near each of this system and these units, the associated source operates. The independent sources raise printer production costs.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.4-302258 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,639 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-307591 corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 641,749 filed on May 2, 1996 disclose facsimile machines, which each include a drive mechanism. The mechanism includes a reversible drive motor, from which motive power can be transmitted to a sun gear. An arm can pivot on the axis of the sun gear, and carries a planet gear. The planet gear is in mesh with the sun gear to rotate on its own axis and turn around the sun gear. The angular position of the arm is limited through a solenoid or another actuator, or a cam. The drive mechanism can selectively drive paper feed rollers, paper discharge rollers, a platen, an original reading roller, etc. Separate or special operation of the actuator needs controlling. The phase of the cam needs controlling with another planetary gear drive. In any case, the mechanism is very complicated in structure.